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With Holy Week now concluded, I was pondering what appears to be the demise of the local Good Friday service in my community. It used to be that the local churches near my little town would combine to host a Good Friday service, but I heard nothing about it this year. The large (for our area) Pentecostal church of which I am a member does not hold its own Good Friday service, but we did host the traveling community service now and then.

Having grown up in the Lutheran Church, which firmly places Good Friday among the most “holy” dates of the year, the day retains great meaning for me. Since leaving that denomination, I’ve wandered through more traditionally evangelical churches. Almost universally, those evangelical churches have had an indifferent relationship with Good Friday. Scant few held their own Good Friday meeting, and if they did, it always felt more haphazard than those I was used to in the Lutheran Church.

Over the years, even those evangelical churches that DID have a Good Friday meeting seem to have let it slide into oblivion.

I talked with a Roman Catholic last Good Friday evening and we tried to come up with some reason for the evangelical burying of Good Friday, but we came to no good conclusions.

As much as some evangelicals talk about the cross, Good Friday for them is a curious nonevent. And I have no idea why.

Do you have an answer as to why Good Friday has gone missing? What are your thoughts on the downgrade of Good Friday among evangelicals? Have you noticed the date sliding into oblivion in your church or community? Why do think this may be happening (or not happening, depending on your local situation)?

I miss celebrating Good Friday together with other believers. Though I no longer consider myself an evangelical, the majority of my Christian life has been spent in evangelical churches, and I don’t see that changing. I hope someone in evangelicalism starts working to place Good Friday in its proper context for the 21st century.

Shortly before He was crucified for your sins and mine, Jesus prayed this prayer:

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. ” —John 17:20-23 ESV

Unity gets a bad rap in some Christian circles. Being an “ecumenist” is tantamount to denying the Lord publicly, at least in the eyes of some.

But can anyone look at the Christian Church today and say, “Jesus’ prayer was answered! Just look at all the unity Christians enjoy”?

Silly question, especially given the thousands of denominations that exist.

On the list of grievous sins most Christians carry around in their heads—murder, sexual perversion, stealing, lying, envy, pride—I don’t think disunity makes it into the top 100.

Look at the importance Jesus gives unity, though! He considers it the sign by which the world knows that He was truly sent by God, proving that He wasn’t just another in the long line of self-appointed holy men spouting nice aphorisms suitable for a bumper sticker. And that unity of those who claim to love God verifies how much God loves the people of the world too (our favorite verse, John 3:16, and all that, right?).

Doesn’t that sound like it’s of the utmost importance? Yet unity is given the shortest of all shrifts. Being seen as always being correct trumps all efforts at unity, as if it were impossible to find unity if people are in different places in their walk with God and see life from different perspectives as a result.

What if disunity among Christians was the worst sin of all, since it undermines the very proof that Jesus is who He said He is and discredits the claim of God to love? Given the importance of those two bedrock beliefs in the Christian faith, how could disunity NOT be one of the most grievous of all possible sins? The perception of the character of God Himself is at stake when we are not unified, isn’t it? Doesn’t disunity within the Church even tear at the reality of the Trinity of God?

Yet who out there is striving to make unity important? Which well-known church leaders are working toward unity more than anything else, rather than separating themselves and their fans into tinier and tinier fragments of the Church Universal? Which disgruntled churchgoers are making unity the most important consideration for STAYING in a less-than-ideal church, rather than bolting like so many others do?

Fact is, too many of us Christians could not care less about unity.

My question then: Is the lack of importance we ascribe to maintaining unity within the Body of Christ making Jesus’ prayer for unity fail?

In the first part of this limited series, I talked about how we Christians often make pronouncements that eliminate all genuine discernment. Today, I want to expand that post and note how easily we fall into ghettos of thinking that harm our ability to engage a dying world for the better.

As if perfectly anticipating this post, the following showed up online:

A recent article on the CNN website entitled, “More teens becoming ‘fake’ Christians,” drew my attention to a book written by Kenda Creasy Dean, a United Methodist minister and Princeton seminary professor. The author’s credentials, I have to admit, initially set off my alarm bells, signaling “liberalism alert.” Yet I am very, very glad I kept reading.

Fact is, for the educated believer, plenty of articles are worth reading.

But you wouldn’t always know that from the way some Christians talk and act. The statement above that grieves me is this: “The author’s credentials, I have to admit, initially set off my alarm bells, signaling ‘liberalism alert.'”

Fortunately, Farris decided to keep reading.

But many Christians never get that far. Too many of us naturally assume that nothing “the other guys” have to say is worthwhile. We can’t learn anything from “them,” so let’s stick to “our” stuff and disengage the rest of the world.

If we want to know why our country is in trouble, this is one of the major reasons. We stick with a party line and never once ask if the other party has anything worthwhile to say. Simply granting that they may will get us labeled “traitor.”

Or “heretic” in Christian circles, which is about as low a label as a supposed believer can receive.

In those Christian circles, we just substitute different labels than the political ones. Let’s try a few and see how they read:

“The author’s credentials, I have to admit, initially set off my alarm bells, signaling ‘charismatic alert.'”

“The author’s credentials, I have to admit, initially set off my alarm bells, signaling ‘Calvinist alert.'”

“The author’s credentials, I have to admit, initially set off my alarm bells, signaling ‘Emergent alert.'”

Now some may consider the above overkill, yet every day I read blogs written by Christians of one sect/denomination/belief or another, and this kind of thing goes on all the time. Instead of adding “Yet I am very, very glad I kept reading,” the conversation stops right there.

The reasoning? Discernment.

But stopping right there and blaming an inability to engage the ideas of someone who thinks differently from us is not discernment. It’s small-mindedness. In truth, it’s a form of willful ignorance.

Worse, the tendency is to fall into a perpetual state of ridicule. Some people DO keep reading, if only to add more grist for their predisposed mill.

The problem is that people who think differently from us, even Christians who think differently from us, may still have valid points we need to consider. No one is wrong on everything. Ignoring those who think differently or lampooning their most obvious errors without considering areas in which they may be correct (because that would get us labeled “soft” or something worse) is the height of spiritual pride and sloth. It is in no way being discerning.

Somehow, Paul was able to wade into the very midst of the philosophers and speak to them about Christ, even using some of their own illustrations to do so. Somehow.

Wouldn’t it be great if…

…the charismatic open-mindedly read Dietrich Bonhoeffer?

…the Calvinist open-mindely read Watchman Nee?

…the Emergent open-mindedly read John MacArthur?

Wouldn’t it?

Instead, we increasingly see people retreating to their own little ghettos of thought and practice, and the conversation either gets more shrill or it ceases altogether. When that occurs, problems go unsolved, community dies, and everyone retreats to his or her own bunker.

People who think differently than I do have helped shaped my Christian walk for the better. If it were not for them challenging the established way I thought, I wouldn’t be the Christian I am now. And the only way I got that bettering was by engaging hard and radical ideas that put my existing belief system under a microscope.

Yes, that’s scary. Yes, that raises the potential that my carefully crafted persona of perfection will come crashing down. Fact is, for most of us, that persona does need to come crashing down. We all need to admit that we could stand to learn a few things. We all need much more humility.

The worst thing we Christians can do to our perceived foes in the public square is to call for their silence, to stick our fingers in our ears, or to resort to shouting them down. None of that shows any discernment. It’s just childish.

Francis Schaeffer wrote extensively that we Christians cannot be afraid of ideas. We must also not be afraid of genuine truth that may show holes in our own beliefs, even if those truths come from “the other guys.” Our holes don’t necessarily mean that we are wrong, only that greater truths and understandings exist, and we must understand them for what they are and how they may help us bolster our own understanding of what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise.